Shipment planning protocols in cyber-physical internet for modular integrated construction logistics

Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) logistics is characterized by its time sensitivity and high cost. Effective shipment planning is crucial for reducing transportation costs and achieving just-in-time delivery. However, existing shipment planning technologies are primarily designed for theoretical scenarios, overlooking the practical challenges encountered in real logistics systems, such as difficulties in information sharing, partially observed logistic resources, and uncertainties in order demands. This paper proposes a novel shipment planning protocol within the Cyber-Physical Internet for MiC logistics. Inspired by the transport control protocol in digital networks, the protocol facilitates the transformation of goods from the Application layer to the protocol shipment units delivered to the Network layer. All decisions are made based on standardized shared information among stakeholders in MiC. The proposed shipment planning protocol is evaluated using actual historical shipment orders from Hong Kong. Results demonstrate our method can generate high-quality and just-in-time shipment plans under limited logistics resources.